If Mario Urrutia wanted a raise last season, all he had to do was have a conversation with himself. It probably would have gone something like this:

Urrutia the player: Can I get a raise?

Urrutia the owner: No.

Urrutia the player: Why not? Didn’t you see the catch I made out there tonight?

Urrutia the owner: I did, but I also saw you drop the ball, too.

Urrutia the player: Fine, I quit.

Urrutia the owner: You can’t quit. You own the team.

Urrutia the player: Oh, right.

Yes, the 6-foot-5, 232-pound receiver out of the University of Louisville was recently a co-owner — and receiver — with a Continental Indoor Football League franchise called the Kentucky Xtreme. Owning part of a team while playing for it is not something every 28-year-old football player does.

“Why not? I gotta have something after football, so I decided to branch off, get a little taste of the business world,” Urrutia said Monday. “It’s interesting. I’m learning a lot, but it’s fun.”

The Xtreme is no longer a concern, as its operations were suspended last month, but Urrutia has already moved on to another project. He said he will be the sole owner of the Professional Indoor Football League’s Louisville Firebirds, who are scheduled to begin play next season.

In the meantime, Urrutia has signed a contract with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who are conducting a three-day mini-camp at IMG Academy, and he is expected to be at main camp in June. Urrutia missed the first day of the mini-camp on Sunday because he was attending Louisville and Winnipeg teammate Brian Brohm’s wedding, but the big man made a couple of spectacular grabs on Monday afternoon to get the attention of the Bombers coaching staff.

Glancing at the CIFL and PIFL websites, it’s clear they aren’t the most stable of football leagues. The Xtreme suspended operations on March 26, and there is no mention of the Louisville Firebirds on the PIFL site. That being said, it sounds like Urrutia is treating football ownership like a life-learning experience.

“I’m just taking a risk. Get out there. Why not?” Urrutia said. “You just gotta be fearless. I was interested. I was curious in doing other things, and the opportunity came about playing indoor ball. I stuck my neck out there and took a chance.”

He might not have a lot of time to get the Firebirds off the ground if he cracks the Bombers roster. Winnipeg would love a tall, fast receiver who can go up and get the ball to replace 2012 CFL rookie of the year Chris Matthews, who signed in the off-season with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. Urrutia, who has tried out and played for teams in the NFL and UFL, and was the Arena Football League’s rookie of the year last year with the Utah Blaze, has the tools to at least give it a shot.

“He’s a big, physical receiver,” Brohm said. “He’s got good hands, and he can go deep. He’s a big play type of receiver. His 40 isn’t as fast on the track as it is on the field. Once he has the ball in his hands, he’s fast and he’s hard to catch. In college, we hooked up for a lot of big plays.”

That sounds a lot like Matthews.

If Urrutia doesn’t crack Winnipeg’s roster he can always go to his fall-back job of being an owner, worrying over the results that happen on the field and the bills that arrive in the mail. He said being an owner has “most definitely” changed his perspective as a football player.

“You get the best of both worlds,” he said. “You see how the organization works from the inside, so you’re part of making the decisions as well as being affected by the decision-making. It’s a lot going on.”

MOVING ON … SORT OF

The only difference between last year and this year for Marwan Hage will be that he won’t be playing football for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Not much else will change.

The long-time Tiger-Cats centre on Monday announced his retirement after 10 seasons in the CFL, but he will remain in Steeltown to run a Tim Hortons franchise. He will continue to operate his Hage’s Heroes charity, which helps youth experience football and gives back to the area’s underprivileged.

Hage, who was a CFL all-star in 2010 and a four-time CFLPA all-star, will also remain on the players’ association executive, which is currently in negotiations with the league about a new collective bargaining agreement.

Hage said during his retirement speech in downtown Hamilton that his decision to walk away from the game at the age of 32 was so stressful that it left him fatigued. The Ottawa RedBlacks took him in December’s expansion draft when Hamilton left him unprotected, but he technically retired as a Tiger-Cat on Monday.

The Beirut-born Hage said the game of football helped him “reach limits that I had never even dreamed of.” It wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops, though, as the Ticats were a combined 66-113-1 during his decade in Black and Gold. The team’s best season with Hage on the roster was its final one, as the Ticats won 10 games for the first time during his career and advanced to the Grey Cup, which it lost to the host Saskatchewan Roughriders.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

There was some confusion Sunday about when former Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson will work out for the Montreal Alouettes. He will, in fact, take part in their mini-camp that starts on Tuesday night in Vero Beach, Fla. … Several teams across the league are mourning the recent passing of Bill Quinter, who helped put together several Grey Cup winning squads, and also played and coached in the three-down loop. He spent time in B.C., Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Toronto.